CINCINNATI'S ODD COUPLE
by Donald Suggs and Mandy Carter (NYTimes Op-Ed, 12/13/93)
(Donald Suggs is public affairs director at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation of New York. Mandy Carter is a public policy advocate at
the Human Rights Campaign Fund)
For years, leaders of the gay and lesbian rights movement have given highest
priority to the interests of their most powerful constituents -- white men.
This has enabled the religious right to depict the movement as a group of
well-off whites fighting for "special rights." Last month, conservatives put
a new spin on this effort: an anti-gay ballot measure passed in Cincinnati
with heavy support from black ministers and their parishioners.
Blacks make up 38 percent of the city's electorate, and the religious right
clearly considered them vital to its campaign. As they have in other cities,
conservative groups, many from out of state, worked for months and spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars to establish personal contact with black
church leaders and their communities.
They also produced and distributed a manipulative video called "Gay Rights,
Special Rights," which cleverly and misleadingly juxtaposes images from recent
gay rights rallies and black civil rights marches of the 60's. Using footage
out of context, the video implies that the two movements are at odds and that
gay and lesbian gains will detract from those made by blacks.
While the city's old-guard black leaders opposed the anti-gay measure,
conservative ministers were far more outspoken in their support and
persuasively made the case that discrimination against homosexuals is not a
civil rights issue. They were effective: 56 percent of voters in the
traditionally liberal black precincts voted to repeal the anti-bias
protections.
Gay leaders haven't completely ignored blacks. But few have gone further than
securing public endorsements from prominent black leaders like Jesse Jackson.
Apparently they assume that blacks are unaware of the religious right's dismal
history on civil rights and that it's only a matter
of time before blacks wake up to the reality that they're being used.
After all, the notion that lesbians and gay men are seeking special rights is
not new. It's the same rhetoric that was used by opponents of black civil
rights laws during the Reagan-Bush era, complete with references to quotas and
"preferential treatment" that no lesbian or gay organization has asked for or
endorsed.
What many gay people don't see is that black leaders are benefiting from their
pacts with religious conservatives and will continue to sway their followers
against homosexuals. For ambitious black ministers in Cincinnati like K. Z.
Smith and Charles Winburn, the media exposure they got for their anti-gay
activism was priceless. And the passing of the measure won't end their mutual
beneficial alliance with the religious right, which has sent a stream of cash
into their coffers. One group, Coloradans for Family Values, sent $400,000
into Cincinnati before the vote.
The situation is compounded many lesbian and gay activists who insist that
racism isn't a gay issue. Anyone who tries to widen the focus of gay activism
to broader civil rights issues is characterized in some gay publications as a
white-male basher or is accused of caving in to political correctness. This
alienates and exhausts black lesbians and gay men and our allies.
The gay movement should concede that it has been dangerously narrow in its
view of civil rights. If it hopes to get black support, it is going to have
to bring more black lesbians and gay men into its upper levels on the local
and national levels. Likewise, black leaders must stop looking at the gay
movement as a white issue and begin acknowledging and addressing the concerns
of the gay people in the communities. Otherwise, the religious right will
continue winning the hearts and minds of blacks in Cincinnati and beyond.